Forensic Science

When students of forensic science at the University of Baltimore do laboratory work, they wait until technicians from the city's crime lab leave for the night. The school's lab equipment is so limited that all of it can be stored in one closet. But forensic science education at the downtown university is set to undergo a major transformation, with a laboratory expansion and upgrade from a $2 million grant approved by Congress last month. There is no completion date for the project, which is still being planned.

Despite his efforts to stave off his long-overdue date with justice, indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic appeared before a panel of judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Friday. Soon he will stand trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, atrocities he planned and executed throughout the 1992-1995 war, from the siege of Sarajevo to the concentration camps of Prijedor and the genocide at Srebrenica. Mr. Mladic's last request before his transfer was to visit the grave of his daughter, Ana, who committed suicide in 1994 with her father's pistol.

Baltimore prosecutors often complain that city jurors are unduly influenced by TV crime dramas. They call it the "CSI Effect," a reference to the popular television show where fingerprints, bullet fragments, gunshot residue, bite marks and other forensic evidence almost always match a suspect to a crime. That's not the way it is in real life, though plenty of criminal cases have been decided on just that kind of evidence. Now, prosecutors in Maryland and across the nation will have to contend with a judgment of forensic science more troubling and problematic for the criminal justice system than any prime-time soap.

Baltimore prosecutors often complain that city jurors are unduly influenced by TV crime dramas. They call it the "CSI Effect," a reference to the popular television show where fingerprints, bullet fragments, gunshot residue, bite marks and other forensic evidence almost always match a suspect to a crime. That's not the way it is in real life, though plenty of criminal cases have been decided on just that kind of evidence. Now, prosecutors in Maryland and across the nation will have to contend with a judgment of forensic science more troubling and problematic for the criminal justice system than any prime-time soap.

Three years ago, science teacher Terri Bradford had to rely on textbooks and the traditional gear of lab biology and chemistry to grab the interest of her River Hill High School students. Today, Bradford is known for her mock crime scene layouts - complete with fake corpses and bloody footprints in the classroom - as she teaches the applied science of forensics. Bradford, who is part of a growing group of forensic science teachers in high schools across the country, uses real-life stories, equipment and guest speakers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, as well as professional pathologists, to impart crime-solving lessons.

NEWBURGH, N.Y. - In classrooms throughout the Newburgh Free Academy here, teen-agers stifle yawns at the 7:50 a.m. start of the school day. But Mikki Bieber's forensic science students bound up to the roof two steps at a time, eager to take part in one of the latest educational fads. The students, all fans of CSI, television's top-rated show, press their feet into boxes of powdered charcoal, stamp them on construction paper and preserve the prints with a spritz of hair spray. They have discussed in class the many things that can be learned at a crime scene through footprint analysis: How many people were present.

When other little girls were playing with Barbies, Dana Kollmann was shaking a colander in her back yard in Fallston, sifting for treasures in the dirt. Two decades later, she's still sifting -- and her treasures help convict robbers and murderers.Kollmann, 30, is a crime lab technician for the Baltimore County Police Department and a self-described "closet ghoul" who works all night tracking the messy trail of violence. Blood, lint, semen, dust, hair, shoe prints -- anything and everything can be evidence of human misbehavior.

In old-fashioned murder mysteries, the killer's sweaty palms always give him away. The intuitive detective -- attentive, adept at reading human nature -- quickly recognizes them as a sure sign of guilt.Now, investigators say they require not intuition but DNA. They need only a drop of the sweat."When a person leaves any DNA at his crime scene, whether it's a drop of blood, saliva or perspiration, he's left us his calling card," says Paul Ferrara, a noted DNA researcher and head of Virginia's state crime laboratory, the Division of Forensic Science.

They look like dollhouses of death.At the state medical examiner's office in downtown Baltimore, 18 glass cases hold tiny replicas of crime scenes from the 1930s and 1940s -- clues from the past that are helping investigators of the present learn how to be more effective crime fighters."

Baltimore County Circuit Judge Susan M. Souder ruled this week that fingerprint evidence, a mainstay of police forensics for more than a century, is not reliable enough to be used as evidence in the murder trial of Bryan Keith Rose, who could be sentenced to death if convicted. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, legal experts and law enforcement officials are assessing the implications of the ruling on a method that fingerprint examiners say is 100 percent reliable and critics assail as "trust me" forensic science.

When British researchers asked five crime lab examiners to evaluate a series of fingerprints, they were told one pair had been mistakenly matched to a terrorism suspect. The experts reached conflicting results. Only one judged the prints identical. The fingerprint examiners later learned that the samples were prints they each had previously reviewed and found to be the same. The study by Itiel E. Dror and two colleagues underscores what some defense attorneys in Maryland and elsewhere have argued - forensic experts can be influenced, and not in justice's favor.

The Maryland State Police have appointed a new forensics lab director. Teresa M. Long, acting director of forensic services who put the department's DNA analysis program into place, takes the spot vacated by Jay Tobin, who retired in July. The department's 82 employees, including forensic scientists, crime scene technicians, police photographers, inventory control officers and support staff, analyze evidence from state police cases as well as other police agencies statewide, police said.

South River's Jaclyn Nucci is the returning All-County girls basketball Player of the Year after averaging 20.3 points, 9.6 rebounds, three assists and 2.7 steals last year as a junior. The senior, 5 feet 9, was also an All-County performer in soccer this past fall and is concentrating now on leading the Seahawks to the Class 4A state semifinals. Undecided on a college, Nucci, who has a 3.8 grade-point average and scored 1,520 on her SAT, hopes to play basketball at the next level, preferably at a small school.

Call it the CSI list: fingerprints, gunshot residue, ballistics, toxicology, bite patterns - the full rundown of forensic methods used by prosecutors to link defendants to crime scenes. Public perception and generations of prosecutors suggest that all of those forensic methods produce rock-solid scientific evidence against criminal defendants. And one by one, Patrick Kent, chief of the forensics division at the state public defender's office, is trying to destroy those certainties. Kent has enjoyed success by attacking the validity of gunshot residue and - just last month in a Baltimore County murder case - fingerprints.

Baltimore County Circuit Judge Susan M. Souder ruled this week that fingerprint evidence, a mainstay of police forensics for more than a century, is not reliable enough to be used as evidence in the murder trial of Bryan Keith Rose, who could be sentenced to death if convicted. Prosecutors, defense attorneys, legal experts and law enforcement officials are assessing the implications of the ruling on a method that fingerprint examiners say is 100 percent reliable and critics assail as "trust me" forensic science.

A Baltimore County judge has ruled that fingerprint evidence, a mainstay of forensics for nearly a century, is not reliable enough to be used against a homicide defendant facing a possible death sentence - a finding that national experts described yesterday as unprecedented and potentially far-reaching. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Susan M. Souder's order bars prosecutors from using at trial the partial fingerprints lifted from the Mercedes of a Security Square Mall merchant who was fatally shot last year during an attempted carjacking at the shopping center.

The Maryland State Police have appointed a new forensics lab director. Teresa M. Long, acting director of forensic services who put the department's DNA analysis program into place, takes the spot vacated by Jay Tobin, who retired in July. The department's 82 employees, including forensic scientists, crime scene technicians, police photographers, inventory control officers and support staff, analyze evidence from state police cases as well as other police agencies statewide, police said.

Jeff Cover's invitation to present his paper at the Academy of Forensic Science conference this week in Seattle is the scientific equivalent of winning an Oscar. His paper "Considering the Not So Obvious: How to Design Your Evidence Collection Facility to Work For You" was chosen from among 700 reviewed by the academy, a spokeswoman said. For the Anne Arundel County police, where Cover supervises the Crime Scene Unit, it's a huge honor, said Police Chief P. Thomas Shanahan. "It's a very big deal," said Shanahan, who in 1986 as the sergeant on the homicide squad asked that Cover be assigned to his unit.

CCC graduation is Wednesday Carroll Community College will hold commencement exercises at 3 p.m. Wednesday at McDaniel College in Westminster. About 400 students have applied to graduate with degrees or certificates. Graduates of the Class of 2007 include students who completed degrees in August and December 2006 and May 2007. School board to meet Wednesday The Carroll County Board of Education will hold an administrative meeting at 2 p.m. Wednesday in Room 007 of the board offices at 125 N. Court St., Westminster.